Investigate the need for bitarray dependency or update version

[fselmo]

What was wrong?

• bitarray dependency seems to be the cause of many users not being able to install web3.py:
• Unable to download web3 on Mac web3.py#1761
• Multiple error with install web3 on win10 home and python 3.8 web3.py#1788
• Can't install web3 on Windows 10 web3.py#2133
• Unable to install web3 despite having Visual C++ 14.3 web3.py#2147
• pip install web3 on windows causes error: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified web3.py#2170
• Pip install error -- Mac web3.py#2171...

... and many cases on Discord

It seems to only be used in hdaccount support. We should investigate if we can remove this dependency while still supporting hdaccount logic.

How can it be fixed?

1. Can we somehow remove bitarray dependency and keep hdaccount support?
2. Does updating the bitarray version resolve these issues?

I'm not confident in option 2 as I believe some users also tried to manually pip install bitarray and also had issues but I have not looked too far into this so I'll leave this option up.

[kclowes]

This commit is where it got added for reference.

[Kaditcuy]

you just need to install bitarray==1.2.2 and it works
I tried this and it didn't work, then I tried the latest version of Bitarray 2.4.1, which also didn't work.

[Bruce95317]

tried the method mentioned above , still error

Collecting bitarray==1.2.2
Using cached bitarray-1.2.2.tar.gz (48 kB)
Preparing metadata (setup.py) ... done
Building wheels for collected packages: bitarray
Building wheel for bitarray (setup.py) ... error
error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× python setup.py bdist_wheel did not run successfully.
│ exit code: 1
╰─> [13 lines of output]
running bdist_wheel
running build
running build_py
creating build
creating build\lib.win-amd64-3.8
creating build\lib.win-amd64-3.8\bitarray
copying bitarray\test_bitarray.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.8\bitarray
copying bitarray\test_util.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.8\bitarray
copying bitarray\util.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.8\bitarray
copying bitarray_init_.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.8\bitarray
running build_ext
building 'bitarray._bitarray' extension
error: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified
[end of output]

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
ERROR: Failed building wheel for bitarray
Running setup.py clean for bitarray
Failed to build bitarray
Installing collected packages: bitarray
Running setup.py install for bitarray ... error
error: subprocess-exited-with-error

× Running setup.py install for bitarray did not run successfully.
│ exit code: 1
╰─> [13 lines of output]
running install
running build
running build_py
creating build
creating build\lib.win-amd64-3.8
creating build\lib.win-amd64-3.8\bitarray
copying bitarray\test_bitarray.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.8\bitarray
copying bitarray\test_util.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.8\bitarray
copying bitarray\util.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.8\bitarray
copying bitarray_init_.py -> build\lib.win-amd64-3.8\bitarray
running build_ext
building 'bitarray._bitarray' extension
error: [WinError 2] The system cannot find the file specified
[end of output]

note: This error originates from a subprocess, and is likely not a problem with pip.
error: legacy-install-failure

× Encountered error while trying to install package.
╰─> bitarray

note: This is an issue with the package mentioned above, not pip.
hint: See above for output from the failure.

[mebedel]

My solution does not work!

I think I know what’s the problem
First i installed win c build tools
Then checked bit array version used by web3 package
afterwards I deleted win c build tools
And did as mentioned by my first post
I think that, what got installed by the build tools didn’t get fully deleted
And that’s why it worked for me but not for you and i am using python 3.10 also
I'll check more when I get to my pc

My solution does not work!

[Noob-A]

Still doesn't work

[fselmo]

Option 2 outlined here has been released on v0.5.8 via #163 and will be released on v.0.6.2 via #154. The latest versions of bitarray (v2.4.0+) should have the wheels for different platforms and updating bitarray to one of these latest versions can hopefully help to resolve these issues.

I'll keep this open for now so we can keep monitoring and see if things have improved.

[pietrodn]

Still waiting for the 0.6.2 release, this is forcing me to use a bigger Docker version with the GCC compiler.

[kclowes]

@pietrodn you should be able to use 0.5.8+ or 0.7.0. We have a security fix that got released in 0.5.9 so I'd recommend using that or higher if you're on the 0.5.x versions. I'm going to close this because I believe this should be fixed with the two releases mentioned above.

[pietrodn]

Unfortunately the web3 library I'm using requires eth-account >=0.6.0,<0.7.0 😞

[kclowes]

@pietrodn out of curiosity, which library are you using?

[pietrodn]

@kclowes This one https://github.com/ethereum/web3.py

[kclowes]

@pietrodn what version?

[pietrodn]

6.0.0b4 (I need asyncio support)

[kclowes]

got it. I'm working on that now!